British beef can once again grace tables around the world - now everyone can go home for tea. If only it were that easy.

The damage that has been done by the two-and-a-half year ban can not be patched up overnight. But the British Meat and Livestock Commission, which has planned a worldwide promotion campaign, can take heart from the experience of other products which have come back from the brink of consumer oblivion.

Clear winner

Perrier survived benzene scare

Perrier is a clear case in point. In February 1990 the company was forced to recalled all 160 million bottles on store shelves around the world after significant amounts of the carcinogen benzene were discovered in its water. The dirty filter that caused the problem was replaced but consumers outside France were without the product for about 10 weeks which is forever by marketing standards.

The company president called it ''a brutal crisis'' and the disaster gave Evian a foothold in the lucrative US bottled-water market. But Perrier has regained its popularity beyond France.

Change in direction for Skoda

Skoda: executed a perfect turn

Skoda is another company whose fortunes have made a complete U-turn. For many years Skoda cars, like the Ladas of Russia and Trabants of East Germany, were ridiculed in western Europe. But with the help of new owners Volkswagen, which took over Skoda in 1991 with massive investment, the brand has well and truly come off the hard shoulder. Output last year increased by a massive 36%, exceeding for the first time the 329,000 cars produced by Fiat Auto in Poland. But Volkswagen is not resting on its laurels. It plans to make half a million cars a year by 2002 under the Skoda marque, to introduce new models, and to move up-market.

A bitter pill

In 1982 the pharmeceutical giant Johnson & Johnson had a crisis on its hands. Its leading non-prescription painkiller Tylenol was laced with cyanide resulting in the deaths of seven people around Chicago.

The company's adroit response to the tampering incident was a text book case study on corporate responsibility and crisis management. The capsules were removed from shop shelves, a $100,000 reward was offered for help in tracking down what seemed to be a random killer and a new tamper-proof container was introduced.

J&J's then-CEO James Burke visibly took responsibility for public safety and brought the badly shaken consumer brand back to life.

Long haul to recovery

The tail no longer tells the tale

On May 11 1996, ValuJet Airlines Flight 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 people on board. Accusing the airline of "serious deficiencies" in its operations and maintenance of airplanes, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed its longest shutdown ever by grounding ValuJet for a three-month safety review.

The young low-fare carrier has faced a long haul to regain business. Buying a smaller airline company and changing ValuJet's name to AirTran last year was was step one. Management then systematically erased nearly every sign of the no-frills carrier. The logo went, and $40 million was spent upgrading ValuJet's planes. The company's total operating revenues for the third quarter of 1998 were $115.1 million compared to $56.4 million for the third quarter of the previous year, an increase of just over 104%.

Salmonella slump

Egg-cellent example of a come back

The egg market was sent reeling in the 1980s when Edwina Currie, then Health Secretary, said that the majority of British eggs were infected with salmonella. In the face of plummeting sales the British Egg Industry Council introduced a new code of practice and chicken "passports" to protect the public against the bacteria.

But it took cooking-supremo Delia Smith to really crack the industry slump. Producers are celebrating a 10% rise in sales thanks to her latest cookery programme currently screening on British TV. The first three shows concentrated on different ways of using eggs and has resulted in 54 million more eggs than average have being sold.

Rosier times for Apple

The apple of Apple's eye

Apple has taken a hard look at its core business to achieve a turnaround in fortunes. The company saw several years of decline, and extremely poor performance in 1996 and 1997, as its market share appeared to be shrivelling away to nearly nothing. However the company reported its first profitable year since 1995 soon after the introduction of its new futuristic iMac computer in August this year. Buyers plucked 278,000 iMacs from shop shelves its first six weeks.

Yoyo - destined to come back

The secret of the Yoyo has been just to hang in there, perhaps providing an example to other products. The greatest calamity that the children's toy the Yo-yo ever faced was that it just wasn't cool anymore. But it has come full circle as the younger generation embraces its simple low-tech fun. Sales go through the ceiling about once every 10 years, according to the British Association of Toy Retailers - not surprising for a product whose name means "to come back".